It'll Take A Thousand Nightmares
by farfetched4
Summary: It's falling off the bed that wakes him up and starts his nightmare.   Human AU: in which the nations are a form of group therapy, a sort of 'Be who you wish you were'. De-anon from the kink meme.


It's falling off the bed that wakes him up and starts his nightmare.

It always starts with him looking up at the ceiling with heavy breath, watching as it expands over him and it feels like he's in the middle of the ocean - except it's a small room and yet the space kills him. He almost expects himself to be physically smaller, to shrink to the size he feels.  
He hates feeling small.

Eventually, with some trepidation, he removes his body from the floor (but it's so much like the ocean, all that space and  
he

is

nothing) and replaces it in the world, (hopefully) functioning and on the politically correct side of normal and sane. Pulling on some clothes - tight ones that assure him that he still feels - and a heavy, heavy coat, he begins his day once more, no different from any other day. Almost.

He notes that it is one of _those_ days and an unseen hand pulls the corners of his mouth up, because he is happy, once he gets there, but it's getting there that's the problem and the room is so **big**.

He throws on some music; loud; so that he can't hear the echo and it helps fill the space, the emptiness. An hour getting ready and he thinks he's ready. He stands at the front door, key in hand, barely ten metres away from his first encounter with the morning - but suddenly the thoughts come back to haunt him, ten metres becomes a prairie, the door burns his hand and he sits quivering in a pile by the door, staring through his hand at the fibres in the carpet, wondering when he'll see atoms because he's so small. His head is filled with memories of when there was another bed here.

_This apartment used to be too small, but it was alright because laughter pushed the corners out and the shadows away with dreams of a bigger place, with more than one room. Now the ceilings sag in the vortex of loneliness and it's since become a rolling ocean for him to hopelessly attempt to navigate without-_

Half an hour later, thoughts are pushed from his mind and he locks himself out of the apartment before another episode hits him.  
Half way down the stairs, his knees begin to shake.  
Half way down the corridor he hits himself hard enough to get himself out the door at a run. Beyond that, he simply runs, past the point where he has any oxygen until he arrives and literally throws himself in the building, subconscious tears of fear streaming down his face.

He's getting better. It's only fifteen minutes until his body feels ready to take the weight of his soul and itself again.

It's been an hour before now.

nd finally, finally, he enters that room and acts how his life might have once played out.

"The awesome me is here, everyone!" The 'nations' look and smirk, while he pushes his fears to the very bottom corner of his mind for two hours.

It's the only significant space that feels normal, because it's loud and fun and a nice atmosphere. So much so he actually forgets that he was ever Gilbert, and instead he is Prussia, an arrogant person who isn't ignored, is lonely but does something about it, has seen too many tragedies but has got over them and is a strong person for it. He jokingly yells at Austria. He flirts with Hungary. Him, France and Spain all go around drinking wine from who-knew-where and he's on top of the world.

For two hours.

He's always found that time warps. Forever clunking forward until the end of his life, but at different rates. Two normal hours seem like days that will never end: two hours at the meeting go past in a flash and he often tries to grasp at it to make it last longer. It always fails - the session comes to an end and he attempts to look normal walking out the door.

Well, vaguely normal. None of them could be called 'normal' in the usual sense - else they wouldn't be here. They've all got their problems: Hungary is trying to accept the boyfriend that left her for another man, Austria comes to cope with the abrupt end to his talented musical career. England was so homesick for his home country he tried to end his life. America is a boiling pot of anxiety and crippling shyness.  
And those are only the ones Gilbert knows about, through overhearing or it coming about in conversation.

It's a room full of nutcases really. And he's one of them, now curled up beside the door similar to the start of the day., unable to bear the view through the glass door. He only needs five minutes of this end of the meeting though usually, which is why he helps pack up and stalls until he's almost the last person to leave. So no one sees this.  
He's never mentioned it to the other 'nations', because it's pathetic for Prussia to be so very terrified to open a door.

However, when he feels someone settle next to him, he's overcome by another fear, that feels and tastes completely exotic to him, and that fact scares him even more. Slowly, he glances up to identify his company and swallows the anxiety throttling his throat.

It's Canada.  
Which makes it a bit better, he does like Canada.

But he'd prefer to run out the door than let anyone find out.

He remains statue still.

"I don't mean to alarm you... But why are you here?" Canada's voice is smooth and unwavering, but lacks confidence. He wonders what Canada comes to the meetings for.

"I-I got tired, suddenly, and needed a rest. It's easier and warmer to sit in a building. Yep." Canada raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn't comment. And because he's curious, Gilbert quietly asks what Canada is here for. Although it was also a swift subject change away from him.

"Me? I... I'm actually a girl. I get picked on and bullied, and often find myself wishing I was either a boy or invisible. Thus, Canada. I'm Emily by the way, or Matthew." Gilbert shakes her hand and finds himself admiring the relative ease with which she can admit to her problems.

"Gilbert. I'm here for... the free food!" She giggles slightly, then the pair rest into silence for several minutes, while Gilbert gathers his courage to get out the door normally after his question.

"Hey, Emily. I know I've only just met you, but would you like to have dinner together? We should probably go out, my kitchen is rather..." _huge_, he wants to say, but it hasn't always been so, and he presumes that to one without his problem, it is "rather small..."

"I don't think I've got anything else on today... Oh! Let me just cancel work." She swiftly pulls out her mobile phone, punches some numbers in, and coughs while saying that she's got an awful cold so will not be arriving today. The smoothness with which she lies tells of this being an often occurrence.  
"Shall we go then? I assume you know a good place to eat." And he nods, because there's a small cafe just off the main street that has served as an intermediary for him on the way to work since it's too far to run in one breath.

Backing up to the door, he opens it with his body and smiles as he both lets her through and doesn't see the vast expanse before him. Gilbert clenches his hand, allowing the pain of his fingernails digging into his palm to distract himself from the surroundings and the fact that he's walking, dread like treacle around his ankles where before there had been air. Natural instinct tells him to run, sprint until he's a broken mess at home not here, but since he's with Emily, it's impossible to do so. She looks a little confused when he starts walking as fast as his lead legs will allow, but with a small explanation that this is (has become) his natural walking pace, (there is a small flash of something like understanding or recognition in her eyes, but he didn't look to see - that would require seeing the whole park behind her, and he hasn't the courage) she walks faster.

Soon, (not quick enough for him) they arrive at the cafe, and he sits in the very corner of the room, back pressed to the walls and he feels safer.

From there, conversation finally blooms and flows, not as smooth as between two old friends but with a natural enough timbre to be a sign of something longer and more meaningful than one meal out. But of course, it would come to a point of discomfort, as is only normal between two persons attending a therapy group, especially since they both know, and the scales of knowledge are tipped towards Gilbert, as he knows, to an extent, why Emily is at the group. He could tell that she's been looking for a tactful way to ask, but ignored it.

"Why do you sit like that?" It's a fair enough question really, after reviewing Gilbert's current posture: crammed into the corner with his legs bent in front of him, almost crouching but not quite. Coupled with his darting eyes with survey the room every few minutes, it is an odd position, and doesn't look entirely comfortable.

"It's because- because I hate space. I hate spaces." He doesn't use his label not because he doesn't like it, but so it isn't so plain, so clear cut. One thing so rarely fits into the box of something else, thus jigsaws are idealistic things.  
A slender golden eyebrow of hers rises, and he knows what is coming.  
"Why?" The question is asked before thought yet after the chance for revoking. She almost apologises, but remembers that talking helps some people and leaves the word hanging in the atmosphere.

"When I'm ready to accept the reason myself, I'll tell you. How about it?"

And they smile. Not for hope, despite the situation being laden with it. No - they grin at each other because the truth yells so loudly, yet silently: _it'll get much, much worse before it gets better_. They smile for the lack of happiness to come, in the times when they'll need a friendly face most yet a smile will be the last thing on their minds.

_It'll take a thousand nightmares...__  
__...to reach the dream we've been waiting all our lives for._

_

* * *

_

_This is a de-anon, in a sense, from the Kink Meme, for the prompt that the 'nations' is actually a group therapy for people disappointed with their lives. You can find it here: .?thread=55880214#t55880214_

_There are some really good fills on there, I suggest you read them. Most are better than this one, I believe~_

And copied from there, my little explanation as to Gilbert's problem: Here, Gilbert suffers with agoraphobia, or the fear/hate of wide open spaces. I'm not sure how well this was portrayed, but hopefully it came across as slightly realistic?  
My thoughts as to why he has this are that he had a long-term girlfriend who was one of those one in a million matches to him, and that was the only close relationship he had - until she died after an accident. He was left with no one to turn to, and felt completely lost in life. He doesn't like open spaces because there's a high chance of getting physically lost, which he wouldn't cope with well. Also, he's afraid something similar might happen to him.

Thoughts, opinions? I'd like to know how well I managed to portray agoraphobia, since I don't actually suffer with it myself...


End file.
